I was, like most geeks my age, a huge fan of the "vintage" Marvel Transformers comic book. The first comics I ever bought, long before I discovered other titles, were some of Bob Budiansky's best: the last stand of the Autobot survivors, Ratchet's discovery of the Dinobots in the Savage Land, Optimus Prime's severed head entrusting Buster Witwicky with the Matrix, etc.

Through all of these issues, there was a subplot about a young woman named Josie Beller, who was crippled in a brutal attack on an semi-automated oil rig by Shockwave. Things looked bleak for Josie, almost completely paralyzed and confined to a hospital bed, until she created a high-tech exoskeleton and, driven by a blind lust for vengeance upon all giant robots, finally revealed herself as a new villain (of sorts) named Circuit Breaker.

Circuit Breaker kicked major butt in her first battle, then slipped briefly from the radar for a few months (helping the Marvel superheroes out in the second Secret War). She then emerged as the field commander of a government-sponsored anti-Transformer team. By this point, she was so mad with her desire for revenge, she even mounted the severed heads of Blaster and several other Autobots as trophies.

But then, without explanation, Circuit Breaker totally vanished for a few years. She finally showed back up a little over a year into Simon Furman's run on the title, where she was reunited with her former boss, GB Blackrock (a fairly obvious Tony Stark clone), and decided to join a new superhero team he had created to aid the Autobots.

With a (very) slightly updated costume, Circuit Breaker proved even more deadly to the Decepticons this time around. For the first time in years, she encountered Shockwave, this time burning him to a crisp. And when Unicron arrived at Cybertron, this "mere fleshling" was actually able to singlehandedly subdue him long enough for Optimus Prime to plunge the Matrix into his maw and destroy him.

So, my point?

I doubt there is any adult Transformers fan out there who would not kill to have this figure, regardless of the obvious scale issue. But it's been a total legal impossibility. Marvel owns the copyright to Circuit Breaker, not Hasbro. And ToyBiz, well, why would they produce a character so tightly linked to a popular toy line from a competitive company?

Until, hopefully, now. Because now Hasbro has the rights to Marvel Legends. There's not the same logistical nightmare of creating a Marvel superhero figure who would essentially have to have a Transformers comic book as her pack-in. And you've recently shown with lines like Titaniums and Star Wars Transformers that you don't have any qualms about producing "crossover" figures.

Circuit Breaker could be a fairly easy kitbash to produce. Practically any female body, with some slight retooling to add her tape-like exoskeleton, could work, and the head from a Jubilee would work nicely. (It is safe to assume that you're going to correct ToyBiz's glaring oversight on that particular issue as well, right?)

Maybe she'd work best as an exclusive, either through Diamond or at Comic-Con, since those would be the most obvious outlets. Or she could be worked into another wave, since A) everyone can use another cool scantilly-clad superheroine, and B) the character is no more obscure than X-23.

Just please take this into consideration. And maybe add a severed faceplate from Blaster, complete with aghast expression, as a pack-in.

Kidhuman

08-13-2006, 11:31 PM

Damn, I remember that comic. I would love to have a Marvel Legend of her. She kicked arse, so how about it Hasbro, make her for me? For Chux? For us?